


Chercher

by Ozymanreis



Series: Sheriarty Week [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Corpses, Dead People, Foiled Confessions, Goodbyes, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Sentimental Sherlock, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4186860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ozymanreis/pseuds/Ozymanreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(v). To look for</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chercher

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sheriarty week on Tumblr. Prompt for today was "Post-Reichenbach"

The lights in the morgue are uncomfortably bright. Sherlock finds it odd he’s never noticed this before — he notices  _everything_.

Well. Everything that wasn’t important. As to what  _was_  important, it’s far too late now. Sherlock is standing beside an open drawer, its sole purpose to hold a corpse. The metal is clueless as to what it’s housing, the body not yet cut into, not yet primed for the grave.

 _Moriarty_.

He lays there, eyes still open, still glassy. His jaw had been closed during transport, but his muscles, stiff with rigor mortis, still echo  _glee_.

Sherlock’s face, however, reflects only 20% of his crushing despair.

It’s illogical, what Sherlock’s doing. Objectively, he knows the man on the table is dead. His hand is cold, unyielding. No part of him may acknowledge what little Sherlock can do to assuage his own guilt.

“Sherlock?” Molly calls tentatively, knocking softly as she could at the wall outside the morgue. The detective doesn’t answer, swiping his arm over his eyes. “Sherlock?” She repeats, opening the door to let herself in, “We… you have to go now.”

How long had he been down here already? Uncharacteristically, the man had lost track of time. Her small form leans against the frame, hugging herself tightly. Does she know? In her endlessly empathetic world, can she feel his pain in her own heart?

If that’s true, Sherlock wonders how she isn’t crying too. “Just…” Sherlock’s voice breaks on the short syllable, a crack from his characteristically low baritone into a shocking falsetto, “Five more minutes… please.”

The morgue attendant pauses, weighing the options. Calculating the risk of getting caught, and if it’s worth giving her beloved detective whatever closure he can find. “Five minutes. Less if you can manage it.”

He nods, “Thank you.” It’s important to get moving, he knows this. Mycroft will be expecting him, Jim’s autopsy report, and genetic testing to verify his identity, is top priority for the Yard.

But to think that way would be to reduce the man to the sum of his parts. Sherlock hears the door close, footsteps wandering away. Alone again, with a scant 285 seconds left. And at the end of it, the detective must accept isolation and exile.

The urge to lean over and kiss him is there.  _That_  was something out of a fairy tale, wasn’t it? To wake the sleeping prince…

But that was a story, this was real life, and out here, Sherlock was fairly certain that would count as some form of necrophilia. Yet… would it really? In a theoretical sense, he wasn’t kissing a  _corpse_ , he’d be kissing  _Jim_ , or at least his memory, and all his accomplishments. Kissing him goodbye.

A concession, then. Sherlock kisses the palm-side of his fingers, then presses them to Jim’s forehead. “I’ll see you soon.”


End file.
